


we're the kids your momma warned you about

by verity



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Beacon Hills High School, Dark Stiles, Inspired By Tumblr, Lab Partners, M/M, The Terrible Life of Derek Hale, Time Travel, Younger Derek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-03
Updated: 2014-02-03
Packaged: 2018-01-11 01:19:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1166898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verity/pseuds/verity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ten weeks ago, Derek woke up on a couch in Future Self's empty apartment. He was looking through the fridge when Future Self came in and slammed him to the floor, and then they had a long, glowy stare-off, Future Self's blue eyes boring into Derek's golden ones. "You're me," Derek said, shocked, not quite knowing how he knew.</p><p>"No," Future Self said. He scrambled off Derek, staring at him like <i>he</i> was the scary predator in the room.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we're the kids your momma warned you about

**Author's Note:**

> Based on [teamsciles](http://teamsciles.tumblr.com/)'s [Sterek High School AU](http://teamsciles.tumblr.com/post/74645378927) gif set (not additional text; I borrowed a smidge of dialogue!) and [eaames](http://eeames.tumblr.com/)'s [Time Traveling Derek AU](http://eeames.tumblr.com/tagged/ttd), story set during early 3B. Erica and Boyd are still alive, because.
> 
> thanks to languisity & betp for encouragement. <3 
> 
> additional content notes at end (spoilery)

Future Self decides Derek should go to high school with everyone else by the end of the month.

"I thought we were treating this like a vacation," Derek says, dog-earing Future Self's copy of _Watchmen_ pointedly. He's sleeping on Future Self's couch. It doesn't feel very much like a vacation.

Future Self sighs, shoulders bowing. "It's been four weeks, and Deaton still doesn't know--"

"I'm a _time-traveling werewolf_ ," Derek says. "I could pop back in the middle of a test from stress."

"Sounds good to me," says Cora, appearing from nowhere.

Derek rolls his eyes. "I see how it is. You don't want me around."

"I can smell how often you jerk off," Cora says. "So—no."

Future Self sighs again.

Derek still can't believe he grows up to be _this_ uncool.

—

School is okay, sort of. Peter handles the paperwork; Future Self buys Derek a TI-83+. The future hasn't changed school that much, aside from the fact that everyone else has a slick smartphone while Derek is stuck with a dented Nokia brick that may be the same one he had in high school the first time around. He has an equally ancient laptop without internet access.

"It's for your own safety," Future Self said grimly when he presented them to Derek. "You don't need to know everything. You'll be back home soon. You won't date anyone named Kate or Paige."

"I won't date anyone named Kate or Paige," Derek repeats for the 9000th time since he showed up in Beacon Hills 2.0. "Can I call Mom?"

"She and Laura don't have phones on their—retreat," Future Self lies. "They're fine."

Future Self lies a lot; Derek's starting to pick out a pattern. He tries not think about it too much.

He'll be home soon. Right?

—

Another month goes by.

"We don't even know if Mini D is actually past you." Stiles leans across the table, jabbing his finger at Future Self. "He could be you from an alternate universe. Or he could have created a branch off of ours by coming here. There might not be anywhere to send him back _to_."

"Right here," Derek says around a mouthful of curly fries.

Stiles grabs the fries out of Derek's hand. "I told you to stop eating my motherfucking fries," he says, deadly calm.

Derek swallows. "Sorry."

—

At first, Derek thought Stiles was cute and annoying, like one of those yappy purse dogs on a disturbingly large scale. Stiles _is_ cute, and he _is_ annoying, but he's also kind of terrifying. "Was he this scary before he got… possessed?" he asks Erica at lunch.

"Not switching lab partners with you, babe," she says before she presses a red-mouthed kiss to Derek's cheek that takes him five minutes of scrubbing to get off in the bathroom.

Derek's late for class. Stiles looks like he's going to gut him with his eyeballs. "Sorry," Derek hisses under his breath as he slides onto the stool next to Stiles. "Erica—"

Three rows in front of them, Erica hums innocently to herself, twining her fingers in Boyd's and dragging a red talon possessively along his knuckles.

"Boyd wouldn't trade with me," Stiles says. He opens his lap notebook. "Let's just get this over with."

The frog in front of them reeks of formaldehyde. Derek already wants to puke.

—

"You don't like me," Derek says when they get their grades on that lab report back.

Stiles looks up from his paper. His skin is papery pale; there are dark half-moons under his eyes. "Fuck off."

—

Derek doesn't even know if his grades matter. Ten weeks ago, he woke up on a couch in Future Self's empty apartment. He was looking through the fridge when Future Self came in and slammed him to the floor, and then they had a long, glowy stare-off, Future Self's blue eyes boring into Derek's golden ones. "You're me," Derek said, shocked, not quite knowing how he knew.

"No," Future Self said. He scrambled off Derek, staring at him like _he_ was the scary predator in the room.

"Derek will probably return home as quickly and easily as he got here," Deaton said later, only Derek didn't, hasn't.

So here he is, with a C+ on his lab report and a five-subject notebook he's starting to fill with half-assed notes. The only things Derek's good at are basketball and English, but he doesn't exactly wave that last one around. And it's so much effort already just to keep up with everything, to come home every night to an apartment that's cold and lonely instead of his warm safe house. He needs help.

—

Derek corners Stiles in a stairwell after class. "We have to do better next time." The bell's rung for lunch, so this building's almost deserted. The closest heartbeat is a few classrooms down.

Stiles slouches back against the painted brick. "Oh, is that so?"

Back at home—in this same school, six years ago—Derek used to be the kind of guy who walked through the halls like he owned them. Now he's standing in front of Stiles, shuffling his feet, talking about their dumb homework. "Don't your grades matter to you? Like—this is your real life, dude. And I can't do these stupid labs without you."

Stiles says, "Then how about you get on your knees and ask more nicely?"

—

Derek goes home to the loft after school and it's blissfully empty. He has enough time and hot water to jerk off twice in the shower, and if he's thinking about Stiles, the arc of his throat as he tipped back his head, well, no one has to know.

—

"I don't want to tell him," Future Self says during the third month. He's up in his room with Cora; it would be polite for Derek to tune this conversation out, but hey, it concerns him, he's got a vested interest. "I just—"

"He's going to find out somehow," Cora says. "Better you than Peter."

"I'll do it," Future Self says after a moment. "I'll—now. Just give me a few minutes."

Derek's been waiting all this time for answers, but he's not so sure he wants them anymore.

—

"Thought you'd be out here, Mini D." Stiles claps his hand on Derek's shoulder. "Pretty impressive, isn't it?"

"My room was up there," Derek says. "Mom—"

"She's dead," Stiles says.

"Laura's dead," Derek says.

The house doesn't look like his house anymore; it's burned out, a husk, and its wounds are old. His noses itches with the scent of decomposing leaves, ash, and rotting wood. Derek can taste it in his mouth. Stiles says, "Derek called me. He was looking for you."

Derek wipes at his face. "He didn't think I'd be here?"

"I volunteered," Stiles says. "I'm tired of lying to you."

"I didn't know you cared," Derek says weakly.

"We didn't have time to baby you," Stiles says. He digs his fingers into Derek's shoulder. "We still don't."

—

Derek walks Stiles back to where he's parked, later, thinks about shifting and staying that way for a while. He's not expecting Stiles to shove him up against the side of the Jeep. "I'm going to drive you home."

"We're not getting in your car," Derek observes after a few moments. He's pretty sure he's not supposed to be leaning into Stiles, but Stiles is warm and broad-shouldered and strong, and Derek gets it, now, okay: he's Mini D, the weak link, the liability, the one they all have to tiptoe around so they don't fuck up the timeline or just wreck his fragile heart. Whatever Future Self did in the past, it was bad, so bad.

"Nope," Stiles says, looking down into Derek's eyes, arm pressing across Derek's chest, pinning him to the door.

His name isn't Paige, or Kate, and Derek doesn't want to date him.

**Author's Note:**

> content notes: Stiles is manipulative and kind of creepy in this story, and all of the characters from this timeline conspire to deprive Derek of important information and limit his agency. No actual dubious consent on screen but implied dubcon to follow. Brief mention of frog dissection.
> 
>  
> 
> I'm [ladyofthelog](http://ladyofthelog.tumblr.com) on tumblr and I'm so sorry.


End file.
